The Missing Months
by Elise Cullen
Summary: Ever wondered what happened in New Moon between when Edward left and the story resumes? A brief piece on Bella’s struggle during that time.


**A/N: This is a short piece which is set in **_**New Moon**_** between when Edward left and where Chapter 4 starts. I always wondered what happened to Bella during the blank pages of the book that only said the month. This is my version. **

**I tried to be as accurate to the books as I could. I re-read Alice's conversation with Charlie at the end of **_**New Moon**_** about what happened to Bella when the Cullens left. I also took inspiration from Bella's general comments throughout **_**New Moon**_**. **

**Any feedback is appreciated. **

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**The Missing Months  
**

I was conscious that I was alive, but that was about it.

I just lay there; doing nothing, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. My _self_ was gone, leaving my body empty, devoid of any life, feeling or emotion.

I didn't choose to do anything, my body acted of its own accord.

My consciousness came and went without me ever really noticing. I didn't remember falling asleep and I didn't ever remember waking up. I suppose I did sleep some of the time. It wasn't a choice though; I only slept when my mind was too tired to function. When it forced me into unconsciousness for a few hours. Even in sleep I was unaware. I didn't dream, I just drifted between varying states of oblivion.

I suppressed all needs. Not consciously. It wasn't a decision because I didn't think about it. Normal things like eating, drinking and showering didn't occur to me, which was good because I didn't know how to do that at the moment. It was...beyond me.

I lost track of time which didn't matter, because it didn't mean anything to me anyway. My present was excruciating and I didn't see any hope for the future, not that I even really thought about it. How could I think about my future when I was trying just to live through each hour? I was content just to drift.

I could only tell that time was passing by the coming and going of natural light in the room. It would be varying shades of light for a while, which would gradually seep out, leaving only black.  
I was living in the loosest sense of the word. Just existing was more like it. And I was barely that. I breathed in and out but that was about it. That's all I could do. I felt like I had turned to stone, a statue. I was frozen.

I continued to exist in the same state of empty, blank nothingness for a few days. At least I think it was, but I wasn't entirely sure. It could have been hours or weeks for all I knew. I didn't notice and I didn't care.

***

I knew I had been lying here for a few days at least when I heard a car pull up outside. I didn't bother to think about who it could be. I went back to my nothing.

A while later I heard my bedroom door open and someone walked over and sat down on the side of my bed. I had my back to the door so I couldn't see who it was. I didn't move. Then I felt a hand placed on my arm and they spoke.

"Bella, honey, it's me"

I knew that voice. It was my mother. This surprised me but not enough for me to do anything. I didn't want to listen and I didn't want to talk.

She was still sitting there quietly when I heard my door open again as a second person entered the room. Charlie, I guessed. Renee sighed and got up and walked over to him. They started speaking and I couldn't help but listen.

"Where's her bag?", Renee asked quietly.

"In the cupboard, I think", Charlie murmured.

I heard my wardrobe door open and some things being moved around. I also heard my drawers being opened and closed several times.

Awareness crept slowly into my mind as I began it realise what they were doing, what they were planning.

And then I came to, abruptly.

I sat bolt up-right and felt terribly dizzy from not having eaten for who knows how long. I turned to look at them and they stood frozen for a minute before my mother spoke.

"Bella, I'm here to take you home", she explained softly.

It took my mind a minute to comprehend what she was saying, another minute to process what that meant and then longer again to react.

"What?", I said, my voice rough from not having been used for a while.

"Bella, your mother and I are very worried about you, sweetheart, and we think it would be a good idea if you went somewhere else for a while", Charlie explained.

What were they saying? They wanted to me leave? Go somewhere else? Leave Forks?

No!

_No_.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

I couldn't do that. I had to stay here. They couldn't make me go anywhere. I wouldn't go.

All of a sudden, I was furious.

"No!", I yelled. I was surprised at the intensity of my fury but I didn't let it deter me. "No, I'm not going anywhere! You can't make me leave! I won't go! I won't! I have to stay here!", I raged at my parents.

"Bella - ", my mother started to say, trying to reason with me, but I wasn't giving in.

I stormed over to her and snatched my bag out of her hands and started furiously pulling my clothes out, flinging them all over the place and throwing my bag against the wall.

"No! I'm not going anywhere, you can't make me! You can't make me go! I'm not leaving, you can't make me leave!", I fumed.

Suddenly, my rage disappeared and I was left in agony. Tears welled up in my eyes for the first time since that day and poured down my face, blinding me.

"I can't go...I won't leave", I sobbed hysterically.

My mother crossed the room and pulled me into her arms. But it was my father who spoke.

"Ok Bells, you don't have to go anywhere, you can stay here", he said calmly. I knew he was trying very hard to be calm like that, but I could tell he was shocked by my reaction.

All I could do was to nod through my sobs. Now that the tears had started I knew they wouldn't relent any time soon.

I fell onto my bed and curled up into a ball, wrapping my arms around me legs. My parents left the room. I continued to cry uncontrollably for I don't know how long. As I cried, the room grew dark around me. I didn't hear Renee leave.

The night brought no end to the horror but I didn't expect it to. It was inescapable and all-consuming. And it was just the beginning.

I knew for the last few days that this had been building inside me, waiting to come out. The last few days of nothing was my subconscious' way of trying to prevent this. But something like this could not be kept at bay for long, let alone forever.

And now the things I had managed to block out during my waking coma assaulted me in a barrage of memories.

"_It will be as if I'd never existed_". The words repeated themselves over and over in my mind. I cried harder still.

Then other memories, worse ones, made themselves known. I couldn't block them out as much as I wanted to. I remembered being in the forest, and him telling me he was leaving.

_"You… don't… want me?"_, I'd asked, confused.

"_No." _

And upon reliving that memory I felt, quite clearly and excruciatingly, my heart break down the middle and then I was hyperventilating. I couldn't breathe. My sobbing was so uncontrollable I was practically screaming.

I wished I could slip back into my coma again, for that had been so much more bearable than this.

I had no choice but to face the pain that I had successfully avoided for the last few days. Every minute of it was a hellish struggle.

He left me, he left me, he's gone. He doesn't want me. The words just kept stabbing themselves into my mind and my heart, again and again.

Of course, I thought, of course he doesn't want me. How could he? I'm just a boring, clumsy, weak human. Why would he want that?

The pain was incapacitating. I couldn't move. The torture that the memories brought on stopped me from doing anything. They pinned me down and held me prisoner. I supposed it was my punishment for trying to evade it. But how could I do anything when the reason for my existence was gone?

I had no reason to exist anymore. I wished I didn't. I didn't want to do this anymore. I couldn't stand it.

Sleeping was no better than being awake for facing my pain brought on nightmares and I screamed myself awake night after night. I couldn't escape it.

I hoped that I would die in my sleep. Death would be better than this.

After a few days, I didn't have the energy to cry anymore. I had cried myself out. Of course, the pain was still there and would always be there. I just had to live with it, endure it.

Because I knew that I had to try and carry on with my empty life and act as normally as I could for Charlie's sake. So I went back to school a week after...that day...and did my best to pick up the old routines of my life.

The morning of the first day I went back to school challenged my new resolution. Upon going out to my truck to leave for school, the first thing I noticed, which I had previously forgotten about, was the new stereo in the dashboard. I flinched at the memory it brought on. My chest ached and throbbed painfully.

Suddenly I leant forward and starting heaving at the offensive thing, pulling with all my strength in the hopes that it might come out. No such luck. All I knew was that I couldn't stand to have it here for another minute. I needed it gone. Now.

I jumped out of the truck and ran back in the house and to the laundry where Charlie kept his tools. I quickly rummaged through the tool box and found a screw driver which I thought would probably do the job.

Luckily Charlie had already left for work, I thought as I ran back to the truck. If he was here he would see what I was doing and that would just lead to awkward questions that I didn't want to answer.

Getting back in the truck, I shoved the edge of the tool into the side of the stereo where it was secured in the dash. I prodded a few times on each edge, and on the last side the metal groaned and the stereo came a bit loose. But not all the way out.

Knowing my tool wasn't going to get me much further, I threw in on the seat next to me and attempted to pry the box out again with my hands. It was hard and hurt my hands. The jagged edges, from where I had roughly dug the tool in numerous times, scratched my hands.

My nails protested but I wasn't giving in until this painful reminder was gone; I didn't want to have to look at it every day. That wouldn't help at all. And I certainly wouldn't be using it anyway.

Sensing it was almost out, I gave one last tug using all my strength and it came free. It dangled there for a minute, still connected to the inside of the dash by the wires on the back of the box. I gave another sharp pull and the wires disconnected.

I didn't stop to examine it. I clutched it in my hands and dashed back in the house. I ran up the stairs to my room, wanting to get rid of it. I opened my closet door and threw in inside on the floor hoping to never look at it again.

Then I quickly returned Charlie's tool and headed to school. By the time I got there, the first lesson was just finishing. Thinking that it was better late than never, I headed for my Government class.

The rest of the morning passed quickly as I didn't really hear what my teachers were saying and, luckily for me, they didn't call on me. Before I knew it, it was lunch. I headed to my usual table and sat down, not really noticing who was there and who wasn't. My friends all greeted me but all I could manage was a quiet 'hello'. I really didn't want to be here and I didn't want to talk.

That afternoon at home I got stuck into my homework. I knew there was a lot to catch up on. It was a good distraction for me as well.

Charlie arrived home as I was serving dinner and I wordlessly put his plate on the table.

"Hi Bells, how was your day? You go to school today?", he asked.

I just shrugged in response to the first question and nodded in response to the second.

He knew I wasn't going to respond any further, so we took our seats and ate in silence. After I finished doing the dishes I went back to my room to continue with my homework.

Except for this morning, it hadn't been too much of a struggle today. It was horrible but it was tolerable. And if I could just manage to endure each day in the same fashion then that would be good enough.

That's all I could expect from my life now.

October started and it got colder. I could feel that Winter was on the way. I should have cared that the weather was getting increasingly more miserable every week, but I couldn't. I couldn't care.

I found myself cleaning up my room one day around mid October, trying to keep myself occupied, which was my main aim these days. I looked around my room thinking that I had done a pretty good job. Well, I don't know about that but at least there was room to walk again.

I had thought I was finished but then spotted a shirt on the floor by my bedside table. I bent to pick it up off the floor, intending to put it back in the wardrobe. It had to be clean as I wouldn't have worn it recently; it was the thin blue blouse I had worn in Port Angeles that night. My chest throbbed painfully and I hurried to put it away, not wanting to look it at any longer.

But before I could do that I was distracted by what I found under it – a stack of CDs. Before I could block it out I was hit with a memory I didn't want to have.

_"Clair de Lune?" I asked, surprised._

_"You know Debussy?" He sounded surprised, too._

_"Not well," I admitted. "My mother plays a lot of classical music around the house — I only know my favorites."_

_"It's one of my favorites, too."_

The pain rippled through my chest and I shuddered and placed my hand over my heart as though I could stop it. But it did no good.

Without even really thinking about it, I sank to the floor on my knees and reached out to the pile of CDs in front of me and furiously snapped them in half, one by one, until all that was left was a broken pile of plastic.

I buried my face in my hands as the tears I had been trying to contain escaped and rolled down my cheeks.

I hadn't made a choice not to listen to music recently, but now I knew why I hadn't. I couldn't stand the reminder...of him.

I only let myself sit for a few minutes, just long enough to get the crying under control, and then I forced myself up off the floor. I pushed the memory out of my head, gritted my teeth and picked up the broken discs. I stomped outside and threw them in the trash.

Back in my room it occurred to me why I let my room get so messy in the first place; I wanted to cover up anything that I knew I didn't want to see. I had enough pain without seeing those kinds of reminders. My heart was reminder enough. I wished I could throw that out too, seeing as it, like the CDs, was broken.

Time passed yet I still struggled through each day, only doing what I had to in order to keep Charlie from knowing what I was really going through. I didn't want him to suffer with me.

The struggle was worth it. To someone watching me, I probably looked pretty much normal. I stuck to my routine of the last few months, doing only what was necessary but nothing more. I went to school, work, did my homework, did the housework and took care of Charlie. It was an easy enough way to exist.

Thankfully, even these simple activities this took quite a bit of effort so I was too focused on my daily tasks to notice what was really happening around me.

I was grateful for the haze that surrounded me now on a daily basis. At first I had to try so hard to block everything out, but now blocking everything out came naturally to me. I don't think I even noticed that it was there. It made things a bit easier, being numb.

I continued in the same fashion and it was mid November before time caught up with me. Or more like I caught back up with time again.

I had been busy with school work for the last few weeks. I had a major English paper to write and we had just started a new topic in Calculus so I had to focus.

All of this was good for me. I wanted to be busy and forget everything else, time included. I didn't need to be conscious of time because time didn't mean anything to me anymore. Keeping up with time was for people who had a life, had things to do or were looking forward to something. None of that applied to me. Not anymore.

The weeks continued to pass me by in a blur.

One night in early December I was doing my homework when Charlie knocked on my door.

"Yeah", I called, meaning 'come in if you must'.

"Bella, your mother is on the phone, would you like to come down and talk to her?"

"Sure", I said. It had been a while since I had spoken to Renee and thought that, since she was calling, I would make the effort.

I followed Charlie downstairs and took a breath before I picked up the phone. I hoped this wasn't going to be too bad. I had a bit on an idea of what she was calling about.

"Hi Mom", I said, injecting as much enthusiasm into my voice as I could muster.

"Hi Bella, honey, how are you?", she asked me earnestly. A little too earnestly. I grimaced and wondered what Charlie had told her.

"Fine Mom, how about you?", I said quickly, trying to take the focus of the conversation off myself.

"I'm good, just busy with work, you know, and so is Phil".

"Mmm", was my response.

She could tell I wasn't going to talk about myself or ask more about her so I knew she would now get to the point of why she was calling.

"Well, I was wondering if you want to come and have Christmas with Phil and I in Jacksonville?", she asked hopefully.

"Um, Mom, I had Christmas with you last year before I came to Forks, so I think I should spend it with Charlie this year". No need to tell her that I didn't want to go anywhere or that I wouldn't really even be having much of a Christmas.

"Oh ok then Sweetie but you know if you ever want to visit me you can right?"

"Yeah sure, I'll keep it in mind. Anyway I have an essay to finish so I better go do that", I said in a rush, wanting to hurry up and get off the phone and go back to my room.

"Ok honey. Well I will talk to you soon. Love you", she said.

"Love you too. Bye"

I was about to hang the phone back up when Charlie reached for it. I sighed and gave it to him and left quickly, not wanting to hear him discussing me with Renee.

I hurried back to my room and threw myself back into my work.

The rest of the month passed in a blur and before I knew it, it was Christmas Eve and I thought I had better get to the grocery store and get us a turkey otherwise we wouldn't be having a Christmas dinner.

Christmas was a quiet affair, for which I was grateful. I spent most of the morning cooking while Charlie watched sports .We sat and ate our dinner quietly and I did manage a bit of conversation; I thought I should make the effort considering the occasion.

The rest of the holidays unfortunately dragged and I spent too much time at home. More than I liked to anyway. I tried to keep busy; I cleaned the house from top to bottom and when I was done I suspected that it was more immaculate then it had ever been. I stocked the house with groceries. I did all mine and Charlie's washing and I did all the homework I had been given before the holidays.

I woke up on New Year's Day wondering what this year would bring, hoping for some ounce of peace and happiness in my otherwise empty life.

* * *

**A/N: You will note that the story picks back on Friday, January 16th, roughly two weeks from when my story finishes. **


End file.
